Republican nominee for US Senate in Alabama Roy Moore said in a 2009 speech that the only thing that Muslims had done in the United States was the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Moore, a hard-right conservative who beat out establishment candidate Luther Strange in the Republican primary, is now facing Democrat Doug Jones in a special election set for December 12.
The former Alabama chief justice has in the past made a series of controversial remarks about Islam, including earlier this year calling it a “false religion.” In 2006, Moore wrote in an op-ed on the far-right website World Net Daily that then-Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat and the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, shouldn’t be allowed to take office. He has also warned that Muslims shouldn’t serve in the military.
Moore made his May 2009 comments about Islam and 9/11 to the socially conservative organization Council for National Policy.
“We have got to wake up to what is really being taken from us,” Moore said, according to a transcript of his speech titled “Obamanomics and the Tenth Amendment” published by the Council for National Policy. “It is not just the Obama administration, although he’s done his share and will continue to do so. He, too, has gone out and said this is not a Christian nation. He, too, has made a speech at Georgetown University just this last month in which he had ordered all the religious symbols covered. He did bow down to the King of Saudi Arabia, and before the Turkish parliament, he said we have a deep appreciation for the Islamic faith which is done so much in the world, including in our own country.”
“Now, I’m going to tell you about the only thing I know that the Islamic faith has done in this country is 9/11,” Moore added. “This nation was founded as a Christian nation, not by dictate or command of any court and what you might believe. It’s freedom of belief, freedom of worship.”
A spokesman for Moore’s campaign did not return a request for comment.
Jones has already made Moore’s hardline views an issue in the race, in which Moore is considered the favorite to win. In a tweet on Wednesday, Jones criticized Moore for his apparent endorsement of Russia’s anti-LGBT laws, writing, “It seems to me that Roy Moore is for Kremlin values. I’m for Alabama values.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said Republicans will support Moore now that he’s the nominee in the special election, but Moore’s history of controversial comments has led some Republicans lawmakers to express concern.
“I don’t think that’s the future of the Republican Party. That’s for sure,” Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake said after Moore clinched the nomination.